


Pilgrimage

by misbegotten



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:09:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9615437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbegotten/pseuds/misbegotten
Summary: Robbie contemplates the passion of James.





	

Sometimes after sex James gets this look on this face that Robbie can't quite... what's the word? Parse. Like a sentence he can't unpack. James' face is a mixture of pure adoration, of satiation, and of something else. Something like a shadow. Robbie hopes it's not guilt. You can take the boy out of God, or some such. But James doesn't seem to be uncomfortable with the thing between them, and had certainly entered into the sex wholeheartedly (whole-everythingly), so Robbie doesn't put much stock in that thought.

Sometimes, James acts like he's the old man in the relationship, like he can't move his muscles afterwards. He unfolds himself so gradually, every move a little creaky and utterly unlike the smooth, lithe form of James rowing or swimming. Robbie worries that he's broken the lad on those days, but James just unwinds slowly until he can wander about starkers (he keeps meaning to have a conversation with James about propriety, but every time the opportunity arises Robbie gets distracted by a kiss).

Once in a moon, James goes quiet and moody. Robbie's tried cuddling, but James seems to be leaping out of his skin on those days. Trapping him on the mattress seems like trying to cage a wild animal, so Robbie lets him be. He makes sweet, milky tea instead and forces it on James until he coaxes forth a soft smile. And the mood passes, and then there _is_ cuddling and snogging.

On a night such as this, sitting on the sofa with James' head in his lap, Robbie massages James' skull and ponders the puzzles that are James. Robbie doesn't think of himself as an intuitive person, not making deductive leaps. He's more of a plodder. James says he doesn't give himself enough credit (and perhaps their results argue the case better than James does), but Robbie can't help thinking that if he were just a bit smarter he'd be able to penetrate the vast secrets that comprise James' thoughts.

"Are you happy?" he asks.

"Immensely," James sighs. He's pushing his head into Robbie's hand rather like a moggie; at any moment he might start to purr.

Robbie likes the thought of making James purr, but he's working a problem. "I mean in general. Are you happy?"

James opens his eyes, looks up at Robbie. "In general," he says thoughtfully, "I'm perfect."

Robbie smoothes James' forehead. There are more lines there than there used to be, as if James is trying to catch up with Robbie in age. If Robbie could manipulate time, perhaps he'd speed up James' clock. Not because he laments James' youth (though some nights, James' inexhaustible stamina is enough to make him weep), but because if they were closer in age then he wouldn't have to contemplate James doing without him. It's bound to happen someday.

Perhaps James will have tired of Robbie before then.

Something of his thoughts much show in his face, because James clambers up and wraps his arms around Robbie. "What's wrong?"

"You're a right puzzle," Robbie says simply. How can he put into words something he can't analyse himself? That he wants to know James inside and out (mentally; they've done that physically, though they'd both been shy at first). That he worries over the problem of James like a dog with a bone (more animal metaphors, but Robbie has never been given to James' extensive and creative vocabulary). 

That he wants all good things for James, even if he himself is not part of the equation.

Robbie can see, out of the corner of his eye, the look on James' face. Pure adoration and a shadow. James settles into his arms, though, and quotes,

"Be unto me a tower of strength,  
against my mortal foe.  
Guard and ward me with thy power,  
which way so ever I shall go.  
Then shall my heart and soul rejoice,  
with cheerful voice."

"What's that then?" Robbie asks.

"The teares or lamentacions of a sorrowfull soule," James offers. "1614. Though I cleaned it up for you, took out the God bits."

Robbie doesn't know quite how to respond. "I ask if you're happy, and you answer with a lamentation?"

James curls into Robbie and threads their fingers together. "The point is not the title. The point is that you are my tower of strength. You make my heart and soul rejoice."

"Ah," Robbie says, mollified. But that's James, isn't it? That's exactly what he's been puzzling over. Light and shadow. 

"You're thinking too much," James chides him.

"You're one to talk," huffs Robbie. But perhaps he's right. Maybe he can't fathom James because the depths are too great. Val had always seemed more of an open book to Robbie. James is entire volumes.

James extricates himself from Robbie's embrace, tugs on Robbie's hand. "Come to bed," he suggests.

And so he does, worshipping James with his body. Opening James up gently, taking his time to find just the right angles that coax James to incoherence. Coming inside him, bringing him off at nearly the same time so that they're both panting, their bodies twinned in a way that their thoughts can never be.

"What's this?" James asks, brushing Robbie's cheek with the broad side of his thumb.

Robbie's been caught out. Crying after sex, like a moonstruck girl. "I love you," he says simply.

James kisses his cheek, his nose, his lips. "I love you too," he replies, something thick and heady in his tone.

That will have to be enough, won't it? Robbie thinks of the future before them, full of uncertainty. 

"Sometimes," James says tentatively, "I can't quite parse what you're thinking."

Robbie laughs. His old body and James' old soul, in harmony after all. Maybe that's what he was searching for. A sign that they are in sync. 

"I was thinking that I adore you," Robbie says. (He's not much on fancy words, but adoration goes both ways.)

James cups Robbie's jaw and kisses him deeply. Sweetly, possessively. As if the world depends on it. "Robbie," he says, like a benediction.

An old heathen and a God-botherer, and a road that has only one certainty -- the continuing mysteries of each other.

Forever and ever, amen.


End file.
